Tag Archives: billy mckinney

The plan must have been fairly simple as the Yankees returned to the Bronx for a nine-game home-stand – take 2 or 3 from Toronto, beat Boston 2-1 and blast past Buck Showalter’s weaker-than-ever Baltimore Orioles where a sweep seemed more than possible. What could go wrong?

Well, first of all, the Yankees evidently didn’t reckon on a gutsy, scrappy Blue Jays’ performance and their own all too apparent second half failings.

The Yankees had a difficult month on the pitching front with some of the stalwarts they had depended on all year suddenly losing form. Let’s see who came to the forefront and who was added to the corps to keep the machine a-running:

The Yankees weren’t great in July but they weren’t that bad either. They won exactly three-fifths (15-10) of their games. They suffered a fall of form from lead pitcher Luis Severino and most of the bullpen which meant the batters needed to turn it up a notch. Let’s see who did:

The Major League Baseball season was quickly out of the traps this year with the New York Yankees’ opening game coming as early as the 29th of March. Unfortunately, the team were not as quick getting started (neither was the weather, the 2nd of April home opener was snowed out) and the team looked decidedly average and lukewarm until the middle of April. After that things came together in a very exciting way.

Let’s see who the players pushing that momentum were. Batters up first:

(Normally I would have far more coverage of Spring Training than I have this year but with Easter coming early, my other preoccupations have prevented that. My apologies to my regular readers).

If you would have asked me at the end of the 2017 which position the Yankees would sign someone new for in the off-season, my prediction would not have been rightfield. Rookie of the year, Aaron Judge, it seemed had that all stitched up.

Also, if you’d asked me who after Judge was the least likely player to leave, one of my first choices would have been 2b Starlin Castro who impressed so much at the plate and defensively and proved a fearsome double play combination with Didi Gregorius.

The Yankees have to this point in Spring Training (22nd March) achieved more wins than any other team. On one hand this could be due to the fact that they have lost less players to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) nations than most teams, but, on the other, winning games can never be a bad sign. Spring Training is no great way of measuring the outcome of the regular season but being top of the Grapefruit League beats the heck out of being at the bottom.